Bullshit previous gameplay mechanics

[Autosaver]

Dunno if this counts, but I hated how landing on a rail so you could grind was such a crapshoot in SA2. If you were just the slightest bit off, you weren't landing on that rail, plain and simple.

Oh god.

 

In the last Sonic stage, there was this super long rail that would circle all the way down. You were able to jump down and skip riding for a shortcut. I don't know how many lives I lost for being a TINY centimeter off.

[T-Min]

Hmmm, well, avoiding the obvious ones...

 

One of the few things I liked about Advance 2 was how fleshed out each character's moveset was from the get-go. Sonic, for instance, could do the Bounce Attack, the Homing Attack, and use the Insta-Shield, as well as slide and do the ever-useful tricks. The game itself may have been bland as hell, but controlling the characters themselves was quite fun.

 

And now here comes Sonic Advance 3.

 

 

Okay, so, we have a partner system now. Fine, okay, fine, except now, suddenly, for some reason, you have to be with certain characters to use certain moves. Oh, now, Sonic can only do tricks when he's with Tails. And he can only use the Insta-Shield with Knuckles. He only gets a homing attack-esque ability with Cream, and so on and so forth. And, of course, you could say that you get NEEYEWWW abilities on top of that, but none of the new moves brought about by the combinations have any practical function whatsoever. In fact, the vast majority of them feel like they're just thrown in without any thought whatsoever, functioning as an inane handicap more often than not. When paired with Sonic, Knuckles can't glide. He can only do a headbutt/air dash. Why? Tails can't fly properly when paired with Knuckles. He just hovers while holding out his fists wearing boxing gloves. How is this useful to me at all? Any character paired with Amy loses the ability to curl into a ball completely...but now...they can use a hammer. If I wanted to use a hammer, I'd play as Amy herself.

 

But that's not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem here is the idea of forcing me to tag up with another character and giving me no choice in the matter is a handicap in the first place. There's a reason why people usually prefer to play as Sonic alone in Sonic 2 and 3. It's because having to control one character while a horrible A.I. partner stumbles along behind you is awkward. They even tried making it a primary mechanic once before in Knuckles Chaotix, and it didn't work. But the difference between Chaotix and Advance 3 is that Chaotix actually made use of the gimmick in its level design, which was, if nothing else, a unique idea. Advance 3 does nothing with it other than replace the player character's cool moves with really dumb ones, and you get the impression the game would play much better if you could just control one character by yourself. For this reason, Knuckles Chaotix is actually a better game than Advance 3. Think about that.

 

And that's not even taking into account the awful level design, which sucks with horrifying consistency. It's like every idea it attempted to implement, no matter how interesting it may have been in theory, was executed so terribly due to awful level construction that it ended up jarring, frustrating, awkward, or all three at once. And the special stage that's so bland it hurts.

 

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Advance 3 is the worst 2-D Sonic game of all time. I can't believe I ever gained legitimate enjoyment out of it.

 

So, now, for a game that I actually adore:

 

I don't care what anyone says; I enjoy the treasure hunting gameplay. A lot. There are some obvious flaws, but as a Sonicy take on collect-a-thon games, I think it's quite fun.

 

But you know what isn't fun?

 

hhewuirhweurhweiuhgiugauydgusaygryewryuwegisdfodafuiasuhfusdafis

 

See...I don't know what the folks over at Sonic team were smoking when they thought anything about Mad Space was okay. Forcing me to learn how to read backwards is not a legitimate challenge, it's just stupid. Trying to "throw me off" by telling me "the Emerald is most certainly not at the star in the place here no siree bob nope" is almost childish. Trapping me on a planetoid through ungodly clunky pre-Super Mario Galaxy gravity physics that royally screw the controls is just unforgivable. Everything about this stage is a cluster-eff of frustration that's a very likely candidate for one of the worst levels in the series, period. I will never not love SA2, but Mad Space...just...Mad Space.

 

ONE MORE:

 

 

GUNZ

 

"BUT THEY WORK"

 

No, they don't. The auto-aim is completely finicky and unpredictable, taking down enemies is imprecise and unsatisfying, and this is a game about a talking hedgehog.

 

"BUT THEY'RE OPTIONAL"

 

That's a lie, plain and simple. There are tons of situations that require you to use them for some idiotic puzzle, and some enemies that even require you to use them - or they might as well, at least, since using the homing attack is even more impractical than the guns themselves. And this is a game about a talking hedgehog.

 

I suppose, in the end, that was a rather obvious one, but oh well.

[Blacklightning]

Has anyone mentioned any classic examples yet? Because I haaaaaate having to use those slow-ass spintops in Marble Garden, especially when you're required to because they're the only thing that can break certain walls critical to your progress (even if they're indistinguishable from ones you could otherwise glide/spindash through). Super Sonic was always a big pet-peeve of mine, which depending on which game you're referring to either replaces the insta-shield or a fucking standard jump, enabling you to trigger it by accident when you were only hoping to save up for ring bonuses. Don't tell me this shit was unavoidable, they could've used any combination of six goddamned buttons to fix that.

 

In the last Sonic stage, there was this super long rail that would circle all the way down. You were able to jump down and skip riding for a shortcut. I don't know how many lives I lost for being a TINY centimeter off.

It's not actually a shortcut if it's slower than crouch-grinding all the way from the start of it. Never did understand why people are so insistent on that route.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Blacklightning

[Dizcrybe]

Oh god.

 

In the last Sonic stage, there was this super long rail that would circle all the way down. You were able to jump down and skip riding for a shortcut. I don't know how many lives I lost for being a TINY centimeter off.

 

I know just what you're talking about,and the same thing happened to me.

[Brad]

The Rocket Accel from Sonic Heroes is a noticeable awful thing for me. Replacing the spin dash with broken move which I never personally found a use for, not to mention the fact it was pretty broken to pull off to begin with - especially in terms of wanting to increase in speed and such - made it the most pointless mechanic introduced.

 

Also, as previously mentioned, fuck whoever thought it was a good idea to map the light speed dash to the bounce attack. Not cool Sonic Team. Not cool.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Symbotic

[RK64]

I have to say who's ever idea it was to nerf the Emerald radar in Sonic Adventure 2's treasure hunting stages was crazy; it made stages much worse   Out of all the gameplay in SA2, the treasure hunt stages were the worst; you are right in front of the dam emerald shard, but your radar doesn't blink at all, just stupid, not to mention trying to remember were all the pieces are if your are trying to get a high rank in the stages, and now your have a whole mess of trouble. 

 

While I liked its gameplay (at times more then the day stages), the Werehog was another baffling idea; why have Sonic, a character about going fast, slow down and preform GOW-esc combat when you have characters who could do that themselves (like Knuckles or Shadow for example).  Even then, it was stupid to limit your combo's and give you a pathetic amount of health when you first start the stages; in GOW your get a set of fun combos and grabs to pull off so the combat doesn't start off stale and you get XP to upgrade to gain more attacks fast, while in Unleashed you had to grind to get all of your combos. 

[Semi-colon e]

Most of 06, if you observe (aside from glitches though some may be due to the game's unfinished nature):

 

- Homing attacks being laggy as well with a massive delay in between attacks

 

- Sonic and co being unable to jump into enemies

 

- The slide that you can start and cancel easily if you know how but goes on for an eternity and can get through gaps the rolling of the spin dash or the spin kick can't just for the sake of making Sonic's story that bit longer

 

- If you run and suddenly stop as Rouge, she'll do this really fancy spin around move which looks acrobatic and cool but wastes even more seconds than just stopping

 

- Silver's teleport dash being only useful on hills because it goes like two feet

 

- The bounce attack being so stiff you can barely move after using it unless you jump dash or homing attack

 

- Tails and Omega have no flight meters yet Sonic has a meter that doesn't get used thanks to the unfinished gems. This gets worse when Tails just drops like a rock unlike every other Sonic game, unless you do a trick that somehow makes you fly for longer and not drop like a rock which is difficult to explain precisely how to do it

 

- All of Sonic's gems, especially without the meter being active, but some are just worthless, like the short burst dash one that makes you go super fast but with no control and you fall over if you hit anything

 

- MACH SPEED SECTIONS

 

- All of Knuckles's moves make no sense

 

- It is almost impossible for Super Silver to harm Solaris because all the stuff he collects and throws can get caught together and just explode without going anywhere because Silver seems to throw the stuff behind him first because that makes sense - extends somewhat to normal gameplay

 

- Playing as other main characters in other main characters' stories. I see what they were going for in terms of the story, but it wasn't necessary to shoehorn THEM in as well as the amigos

[MamboCat]

Sonic CD's Super Peel Out.

 

Looks cool, but leaves you open to attack.

 

Yeah... I think I will just stick with rolling into things, or in the newer version: Spin Dash.

[Blue Blood]

Sonic CD's Super Peel Out.

 

Looks cool, but leaves you open to attack.

 

Yeah... I think I will just stick with rolling into things, or in the newer version: Spin Dash.

 

The peel out is supposed to be a faster spindash with the draw back that you're totally vulnerable. But it's a half baked idea cause you can just hit down as soon as you start running to curl up, thus keeping all your speed, picking up more speed on hills and getting your attack power back.

[TheOcelot]

Sonic CD's Super Peel Out.

 

Looks cool, but leaves you open to attack.

 

Yeah... I think I will just stick with rolling into things, or in the newer version: Spin Dash.

 

As Blue Blood said, all you have to do is press down immediately after you release the Peel-Out and you are spinning and thus more protected.

 

If anything it's the original charge-up spindash in Sonic CD which was a poor design. Utterly useless if you needed to get out of harms way quickly, due to the time it takes to charge up. The Super Peel-Out takes less time to charge up, and therefore is a much better tool than the charge-up spindash. 

Edited July 13, 2013 by Adam West -Bender-

[Kamakai]

 

I hate the Air Boost so much. When I press the homing attack button in mid-air, I generally want to jump dash. A reasonable, controllable jump dash. The Air Boost, however, is an overpowered broken clusterfuck. Mapping it to the jump dash button makes it even worse, as when your gauge is empty, you can jump dash. If it isn't, have fun dying due to an unnecessary, ridiculously unreliable mechanic.  

Edited July 13, 2013 by Kamakai

[SilentDoom]

Grinding in every 3D game except SA2.

 

In SA2 it was a well thought out mechanic and one that actually contributed to making the game more enjoyable to play.  Sonic felt like he had weight whilst he was on the rail.  If you tried to grind upwards you would slow down and you would build up speed whilst going downwards.  The horizontal vector of the velocity you had upon hitting the rail influenced your speed on the rail and this was all rounded off by the balance system where leaning side to side so that Sonic was always perpendicular to the rail whilst crouching so that he would keep on building speed made it so the mechanic actually had some depth to it.  Final Rush was the best level in the game because it made full use of this mechanic, and speed running it was a lot more satisfying when you had mastered it.  Heck you even had the cool ability to do a trick at the end of certain ramps which would fling you further depending on your speed as well as when you time you button press.  The only flaw with this mechanic was the fact that it was awkward to switch rails.

 

But then from there the mechanic was just dumbed down.  The balance mechanic was never to be seen again in any other 3D Sonic game.  Heroes, whilst had a couple of gimmicks with switch presses on the rails, those gimmicks don't mask the fact that the mechanic itself was very poorly implemented.  The rails were still awkward to switch between but most of the satisfaction had gone.  It was a little better in Shadow since you could very easily switch between rails but still there was very little substance to the mechanic barring the fact that you could infinitely increase your speed by mashing that crouch button.  Then you come to 06 where there is absolutely nothing to grinding whatsoever.  No feel of weight of physics.  As soon as you touch a rail you're set to a speed and the easy switching between rails from Shadow was gone.  It was absolute garbage.  It got better again in Unleashed, Colours and Generations and it was very accessible and easy to use but again there weren't any instances where it was cleverly implemented and the grinding sections didn't really add anything to the game.  

 

It's not even that the mechanic doesn't have potential (SA2 proved from the get go that it does), but they never tapped into it.  Just take the SA2 grinding with the balance system, give it easy switching with triggers/bumpers as well as the ability to easily lock onto rails and make some crazy, erratic rail formations in some levels and the mechanic instantly becomes much cooler.  It retains a level of accessibility but actually has some depth to it.

Edited July 13, 2013 by SiLeNtDo0m

[t0ms0nic]

As some people have already brought up, the Light Dash is that textbook example of a mechanic that's not been welcome since it was introduced. A move that's very specifically made to home in on thin trails of rings is problematic for so many reasons... the biggest offender being stepping on the toes of the Electric Shield and by extension the inclusion of all the Elemental Shields, as we saw when Sonic Heroes phased the Electric Shield out from gameplay and Sonic 06 neglected it to a debug/Gem power. Yet Heroes all the way through to Generations still insisted on keeping the Light Dash, since it was part of that 'iconic' 3D Sonic formula they stubbornly clung so tightly to.

 

Other huge problems presented by it are heavily bolstering your rings count and by extension being a dirty way of pumping your extra lives up (Crazy Gadget's infamous ring trail, to name one), always being finicky about just following one or two rings then dropping you dead, being heavily reliant on Sonic's fast paced controls suddenly detecting something as small as a ring at close range in front of him... and last but definitely not least, finding a suitable button to assign it to that isn't used by anything else in Sonic's moveset. Colours had a better idea of assigning it as a temporary power-up with a Wisp, but they didn't provide any interesting scenarios or diverging paths to give that Wisp a purpose, or a reason to cling onto it for other parts of the levels. Even Generations couldn't fix it despite fine-tuning so much of the 3D Sonic formula (including the momentum-carrying Slide and precise Stomp), with it being forced onto the same button you use stored skills like Super Sonic and Time Brake with.

 

Also going to quickly nip in that the Spin Dash is my personally most hated mechanic; one of the many design choices from Sonic 2 that betrayed the flowing momentum gameplay that Sonic 1 stood for and encouraged so many bad design choices down the line. While Sonic 2 was a bit more subtle with only making it more useful further into the game (such as the crushing parts in Mystic Cave), Sonic 3 made it evident from the start that the move was something they felt the necessity to force the player to do just because they wouldn't offer you large enough spaces (with or without object clutter) to build up momentum for a normal roll, if only just to make Knuckles stand out by stripping the player of something they could do with some earned momentum in Sonic 1.

[Semi-colon e]

I disagree on the spin dash but yeah, the light dash has always been a bit pointless and context sensitive. Even in Generations it's very inconsistent and it's so barely used they might as well have not bothered, especially how it is only usable on certain trails of rings. It also gives you so many rings you never run out of boost in the boost era games. I did like it in Colours actually because it gave the Hover something else to do as well and you didn't lose colour power while light dashing. It also didn't matter as much as rings are absurdly plentiful and wisp points are useful as Colours had a very arcadey pinball style point scoring system anyway.

[Potada]

Something else I have an issue with in regards to Modern gameplay is the boost. Now, I'm not saying it should never have been used; I just fell like it's WAY overpowered. Hell, it's only completely necessary in one of Generation's boss battles (Darnit Shadow) and I didn't need it period for any of the levels.

 

Now, if it simply gave you a small burst of speed for that second or two you use it, then it would balance things a lot better, I think. Having the equivalent of both the speed shoes and invincibility on a button just seems silly, really.

[AnotherAge]

Oh mi days, there are so many examples of pointless gimmicks in the Sonic Universe. I simply wouldn't be able to go through them all. Here is my quick run down:

 

Special Stages (I know they are classic, but they do not play anything like the rest of the game and are mostly cheap or annoying)

Mechs

Fishing

Swords

Werehog

The Co-Op thing in Episode 2

Treasure Hunting

Vehicles ala Shadow in Sonic 2006 (doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of a Sonic game)

 

And many more.

 

Alternatively, gimmicks I did like:

 

Tails and Knuckles' abilities.

Super Sonic

Super Sonic final stages

Boost

Wisps

 

I'm glad Sonic is going back to its roots. 

[FromASloth]

The Magic Gloves.

 

....Seriously, why the hell did we need an ability to turn enemies into action figures? Not to mention it was a pain it the ass to perform, since you had to get THIS close to the enemy for it to work.

 

To quote Omochao in Sonic Paradox, "They're useless, so ignore them."

[Tornado]

Has anyone mentioned any classic examples yet? Because I haaaaaate having to use those slow-ass spintops in Marble Garden, especially when you're required to because they're the only thing that can break certain walls critical to your progress (even if they're indistinguishable from ones you could otherwise glide/spindash through). Super Sonic was always a big pet-peeve of mine, which depending on which game you're referring to either replaces the insta-shield or a fucking standard jump, enabling you to trigger it by accident when you were only hoping to save up for ring bonuses. Don't tell me this shit was unavoidable, they could've used any combination of six goddamned buttons to fix that.

Mapping everything to the same buttons in the classic games long after it stopped being feasible.

*cries*

 

I hate the Air Boost so much. When I press the homing attack button in mid-air, I generally want to jump dash. A reasonable, controllable jump dash. The Air Boost, however, is an overpowered broken clusterfuck. Mapping it to the jump dash button makes it even worse, as when your gauge is empty, you can jump dash. If it isn't, have fun dying due to an unnecessary, ridiculously unreliable mechanic.

This was actually really enjoyable to use in Advance/Advance 2 when it was mapped to , but those two games were also momentum-based and it wasn't nearly as powerful.

 

Sonic CD's Super Peel Out.

Looks cool, but leaves you open to attack.

Yeah... I think I will just stick with rolling into things, or in the newer version: Spin Dash.

The peel out is supposed to be a faster spindash with the draw back that you're totally vulnerable. But it's a half baked idea cause you can just hit down as soon as you start running to curl up, thus keeping all your speed, picking up more speed on hills and getting your attack power back.

More problematic is that it makes you start off much faster, but Sonic CD had that stupid fucking speed cap so it was literally completely useless unless you started rolling.

[Blue Blood]

More problematic is that it makes you start off much faster, but Sonic CD had that stupid fucking speed cap so it was literally completely useless unless you started rolling.

 

The speed cap only kicks in once you press left/right. It took them until S3 to fix that completely. That's the bloody fourth game!

[Alluusio]

The Magic Gloves.

 

....Seriously, why the hell did we need an ability to turn enemies into action figures? Not to mention it was a pain it the ass to perform, since you had to get THIS close to the enemy for it to work.

 

To quote Omochao in Sonic Paradox, "They're useless, so ignore them."

 

Well they are pretty handy against enemies that have shields. If you learn to use them on the go they can be rather useful against artificial chaos as well. 

[Mr Useful]

Well they are pretty handy against enemies that have shields. If you learn to use them on the go they can be rather useful against artificial chaos as well. 

The reason they are useless is because of how you activate it. We have to press the Y button multiple times and then B button instead of pressing the x button or z button.

[Alluusio]

The reason they are useless is because of how you activate it. We have to press the Y button multiple times and then B button instead of pressing the x button or z button.

In most cases you only need to press Y once though before pressing B. You only need to press Y multiple times if there are mystic melody altars nearby. If you keep that in mind they're not that difficult to use.

[Milo]

Threadbump.

 

 

The Sandopolis pulley thing the ones where you used it to wall-jump to the ground in particular, the ones that swung Sonic to the right are rather good IMO). They took way too long to operate, and you couldn't break out of it until you got to the bottom. Unless you weren't pressed for time or very cautious on safety, you were better off avoiding it and falling to the ground below. In terms of gimmicks from the classic games I'd say it's one of the worse-designed of them.

 

 

On another note, I really don't think the kick homing attack from Lost World was a good mechanic. I think it just inserted for the sake of slowing people down (even further) by forcing them to defeat enemies in a very specific way as opposed to the other existing abilities (jumping, HA, and spindashing). The way it's mixed alongside enemies you can attack normally, especially in areas where you have to stop and defeat a group of enemies to continue, I feel reinforces this.

 

 

The way HA was changed in Lost World to destroy a group of enemies I think was arguably even worse, maybe the worst of the lot of changes Lost World made to the existing moveset. It made the original HA move (abused in past games through the presence of HA chains) even more automated by effectively chaining enemies to perform the HA on for the player, rather than the player doing it by themselves. Which I think is a shame because the actual enemies themselves are otherwise one of the best parts of the game for their visual designs and being able to actually put up a challenge to Sonic as opposed to other recent games. Lost World's HA I also didn't like because of how --like the kick HA-- you needed to use it to defeat enemies in a specific fashion-the Zavok boss fight in Sky Road come to mind. Without prior knowledge, you don't know how to actually defeat him. And when you do know/learn how, it turns the boss into a trial-and-error charade because how you have to attack him in a very specific fashion.